At the beginning of August 2023 I traveled to the Kamchatka Peninsula, Russian Far East, to film the largest brown bears of Eurasia.
The Kamchatka Peninsula is home to approximately 24000 brown bears, excellent swimmers, able to easily cross the bodies of water.
Kamchatka bears are excellent swimmers, able to easily cross the bodies of water
The area of the Kurile Lake, the deepest and the second largest lake of the Peninsula, in Southern Kamchatka is visited during summer by hundreds of bears hunting for salmon.
I have spent 5 days on the lake filming these magnificent animals.
Kurile lake lies within the crater of a huge volcano that long ago produced one of the greatest eruptions in the planet’s history. The lake is still circled by active vents and mineral rich ash from the regular eruptions has made its waters particularly fertile.
Millions of salmon come to Kurile Lake from the Pacific Ocean to spawn in its fertile waters which will provide their young with abundant food. During summer Kurile Lake contains the densest assembly of bears to be found anywhere on Earth. All hungry for salmon.
During summer Kurile Lake contains the densest assembly of bears to be found anywhere on Earth
Early in the season though the fish is still strong and swift.
When hunting seems to fail and nothing seems to work when chasing the fish swimming fast in the streams, one old bear knows that there is an easier meal to get and paddles out into the lake, away from the shoals of newly arrived salmon, where there is food that doesn’t need chasing. Some of the first fish to arrive have died and they can be easily collected from the bottom of the lake.
